Polly

‘You know how to holler, don’t you?’ growled Jackson with a wink.

FOUR

It seems wise, at this point, to introduce Megan Reilly because no doubt we’ll bear witness to much of Polly’s experience through their correspondence by letter and phone. Megan, a fellow teacher at BGS, is Polly’s closest friend. She is two years older than Polly but they started at BGS on the same day, five years ago. Megan teaches Maths. With an ‘s’. She is taller and more substantial than Polly, but that’s not hard. Though her distant Irish roots have left no trace of an accent, Megan has the dark, twirling tresses and lough-blue eyes of her Reilly ancestors. She has a slick, biting sense of humour, and the tortoiseshell spectacles she wears serve to magnify the wicked glint to her eye. She’s effortlessly glamorous without a scrape of make-up, her hair sometimes swirled on top of her head, sometimes cascading down her back and, while she merely nods at current trends, she always looks enviably stylish and expensive – in school as much as out.

‘You have this intuitive flair for layering,’ Louise Bray, head of History and a slave to fashion, told her begrudgingly as she fingered Megan’s soft, burgundy cardigan over a peach silk waistcoat worn on top of a cream linen shirt; a white cotton T-shirt just visible beneath it all and a scarf with all the above colours draped about her shoulders.

‘Regulation school colours,’ Megan explained with a shrug.

A flair for layers – bum! I just threw on whatever was clean and to hand.

Megan lives in a maisonette on the good side of Kilburn and she only ever walks to school. It is, in fact, more of a march; she covers the side streets of West Hampstead in under ten minutes, invariably jay-walks the Finchley Road at Swiss Cottage and is at school, unswervingly, at 8.15 a.m. She is always home in time for Neighbours (an obsession about which she feels neither guilt nor embarrassment), apart from Wednesdays when she plays violin in the school orchestra.

It is 8.15 a.m. Megan makes coffee in the staff room. The other teachers mill around, some in conversation, some analysing their registers, others gazing down at the netball-court-cum-playground-cum-arboretum, deciding on today’s tactics to keep their girls in order. To Megan, however, the staff room may as well have been empty. Polly’s absence was all the more stark to her because none of the other teachers appeared to notice it. Despite her universal popularity, Megan felt utterly alone without Polly and she felt her exuberance being sapped. Megan was not used to not having Polly there. Not after five years in which they’d snatched whatever spare time the school day bestowed on them to natter and laugh and share their space together. Their conversations could span school scandals, the beef crisis, cinema and Marks & Spencer ready-meals, in great detail and all in an easy five minutes. Five minutes were ample. In retrospect, they had been so precious too and the bond between the women was strong. Invariably, the topic turned, at some point and on a daily basis, to the Fyfield brothers; usually over lunch-time or an evening’s telephone call, when they could confer more leisurely. After all, Megan has borne witness to Polly’s relationship with Max from the start. She adores Max. And she has also had her eye on Dominic for some time.

It is 8.20 a.m. Megan Reilly has been charged with showing Jen Carter around school and she awaits her arrival with some suspicion. Polly’s replacement? She can’t take Polly’s place. There is no substitute. She is irreplaceable. And yet This Carter Woman has taken Polly’s place in more ways than one because of course she’s now ensconced at Polly’s place – her flat – too. Megan had phoned the previous evening to welcome Jennifer Carter but was so perturbed to discover Polly’s answering machine already boasting a new message in a transatlantic twang that she hung up and phoned Max in disgust (and dismay – having prayed hard for Dominic to answer the call).

‘That Carter Woman’s been tampering with Polly’s phone!’ she launched.

‘Hullo Megan,’ said Max, ‘how are you? Polly did leave a little yellow Post-it on the answerphone with instructions. And her permission.’

Megan chewed her thumb and decided she’d overlook the situation. But log it, all the same. ‘Has Polly phoned yet?’ she asked, ‘has she arrived, do you know?’

‘She has arrived, Meg,’ said Max pseudo-breezily, ‘I phoned the airline to check. But no, I haven’t heard from her and I don’t really expect to tonight. Long journey and everything. Hopefully tomorrow. You haven’t heard a peep, have you?’

‘No, sadly, no.’

‘You will.’

‘Will what?’

‘Hear from Polly, of course.’

‘Oh yes. I’m not used not to speaking to her daily, on the blower.’

‘She’ll have lots to tell you. She already has.’

‘Has what?’

‘Lots to tell you.’

‘Oh, undoubtedly.’

Both sighed.

‘Max, do you feel, you know – easy – about This Carter Woman living in Polly’s place? Cuddling Buster? Using the bubble bath? Fiddling about?’

‘Well,’ paused Max, ‘Polly gave her blessing. And gave me “site management responsibilities” as it were, so I’ll keep my eye on things. The Carter Woman has my number. And I have a set of keys.’

This appeased Megan.

‘How’s Dominic then? He OK?’

‘Yes,’ said Max, throwing a suggestive wink over to his brother, ‘he’s fine. Megan, we really oughtn’t to call her The Carter Woman, not before we’ve even met her. She might be perfectly OK. She’s probably very nice.’

‘But she sure ain’t Polly!’ Megan declared in pure New York.

Max fell silent.

‘Better go, Meg. Better keep the line free, just in case.’

8.30 a.m. Mrs Elms, headmistress of stereotypical St Trinian’s proportions, marched into the staff room.

‘Good morning, everybody,’ she cried, her iron-coloured curls and dark burgundy lipstick fixed until home time. ‘Here she is – locum tenens for Polly Fenton – Miss Jennifer Carter!’ and she applauded extravagantly, nudging the stranger into centre stage.

‘Actually,’ the girl replied, shoulders square, ‘it’s Jen and it’s Ms.’

‘Nonsense!’ cajoled Mrs Elms to Jen’s unhidden horror. ‘At BGS, if we’re not Mrs we’re Miss. Unless we’re Mr, of course. Isn’t that right, Bill?’ she declared to the art teacher who nodded in a vague sort of way, as befitting his calling.

‘Mr Hardy!’ Mrs Elms proclaimed proudly, outstretching her hand to the man and thrusting Jen’s into it. ‘Mr Bill Hardy,’ Mrs Elms continued, ‘this is Miss Carter. Jen,’ she enunciated, ‘is that right, dear?’

‘Uh huh,’ said Jen, who looked tired and, Megan discerned with a tiny touch of sympathy, tearful.

Mrs Elms went through the entire staff body in the same manner, grabbing hands and thrusting Jen’s into them. She came to Megan.

‘And this, Miss Carter, this is Miss Megan Reilly. Hands, ladies. Super. There are no hands safer than Miss Reilly’s, my dear. She’ll deliver you to your class and show you the ropes. And the stairs and the corridors, ha!’

With that, Mrs Elms turned on her squat-heeled shoes and left on the double to prepare herself for assembly.

‘She’s not even fifty,’ Megan whispered to Jen, ‘isn’t that frightening?’

‘Sure is. Do I really have to be a Miss?’

‘Well,’ said Megan, thrusting an unrequested coffee into Jen’s hands, ‘that all depends on your pronunciation now, doesn’t it!’ She winked at Jen.

‘Is this decaff?’

‘Dat is right,’ joked Megan, masking sudden irritation with a daft foreign accent, ‘dis is de caff and dat is de tea!’

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I am Polly Fenton and I’ll be teaching English this year.’

Who? Us! Ladies and gentlemen – us? Cool!

Ten hands shot into the air and fresh, eager faces implored her to choose me, choose me.

This can’t really be unadulterated enthusiasm, genuine politeness, can it? Surely it must be the start of some horrible jest?

You’re at Hubbardtons now, Polly, you can shake off the wariness that the BGS girls have instilled in you.